News In Brief

ByCompiledRobert Kilborn and Lance CardenMarch 25, 1999

A divided Senate voted 58 to 41 to support NATO airstrikes against strategic targets in Yugoslavia, overcoming stiff opposition to some aspects of the mission. Meanwhile two opinion surveys showed Americans about equally split on the issue. A Gallup poll found 46 percent of respondents favoring US military participation and 43 percent opposed. In an ABC survey, respondents were equally divided - 47 percent for US involvement, 47 percent opposed.

The Senate approved $2 billion in aid for Central American nations recovering from hurricane Mitch. The bill was amended to add $40 million for families of victims of an accident in which a Marine jet sliced the cable of an Italian ski gondola last year, killing 20 skiers. It also included a $500 million loan program to help US oil and gas firms hit hard by low oil prices.

Jesse Jackson said he would not challenge Vice President Al Gore for the 2000 Democratic presidential nomination. The decision not to make a third bid for the White House was announced by Jackson in Chicago. It further strengthens Gore's position as the party's front-runner. So far, the vice president's only Democratic opponent is former Sen. Bill Bradley of New Jersey.

A rudder malfunction - not pilot error - was the most likely cause of the 1994 crash near Pittsburgh of a US Airways Boeing 737 that killed 132 people, the National Transportation Safety Board said. It recommended that the Federal Aviation Administration require all existing and future 737s to have a "reliably redundant" rudder system and order the fitting of even more-sophisticated flight data recorders. The nearly five-year probe was the longest in the history of the agency.

Teaching assistants at the University of California at Los Angeles voted 718 to 269 to become members of the United Auto Workers, union officials reported. They said they expect graduate students at seven other California campuses to also vote to join the UAW in the next few months.

Eight bands of Chippewa Indians can continue to hunt and fish on 13 million acres of public land in Minnesota without state regulation, the Supreme Court ruled. On a 5-to-4 vote, the court said neither an 1850 presidential order nor Minnesota's statehood in 1858 had stripped the Chippewas of the hunting and fishing privilege they received in an 1837 treaty. Some Indian law experts had said the court's decision could affect the security of other Indian treaty rights.

Actress Ruby Dee and her husband, Ossie Davis, became the latest high-profile activists and politicians arrested during protests of the Feb. 4 killing of Amadou Diallo in New York. Police looking for a rape suspect late at night fired 41 shots at the Guinean immigrant, hitting him 19 times. Through 11 days of carefully choreographed protests, 391 people - including former Mayor David Dinkins and NAACP President Kweisi Mfume - have been arrested. A grand jury has almost finished hearing evidence in the case.

The Monitor's Clay Bennett won the first-place award for editorial cartoons in the 65th National Headliner Awards competition, which includes news- papers, magazines, news services, and syndicates. Winners were selected by the Atlantic City Press Club.